Commercial Corridor Revitalization Strategy

A commercial corridor revitalization strategy for New Orleans

A commercial corridor revitalization strategy for New Orleans

Broad Community Connections has played a role in commercial corridor revitalization policy and practice in New Orleans since 2008. In 2018, with the support of JPMorgan Chase & Co., we completed the Commercial Corridor Revitalization Strategy through a year-long process led by Professor Karl Seidman and a 30-member Advisory Council. The strategy strives to consolidate both existing city programs as well as new initiatives into a framework that will support small business and local workforce development, leverage public investment, advance policy, and create new leadership and development capacity in more neighborhoods in the city. Karl Seidman—a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, a principal at Karl F. Seidman Consulting, and a nationally-recognized practitioner in community economic development—worked with Broad Community Connections, the Oretha Castle Haley Merchants and Business Association, and an Advisory Council comprised of New Orleans economic and community development leaders and stakeholders to develop the CCRS. Drawing from both recent on-the-ground commercial revitalization experience in New Orleans, and a national scan of best practices from other cities, the strategy strives to create a realistic but aspirational framework, centered on a new office at the City of New Orleans, for supporting commercial corridor revitalization in New Orleans.

BCC works to revitalize Broad Street and the surrounding communities by building on their history as vibrant, equitable, and diverse places. The CCRS is a framework for more equitable and vibrant commercial corridors throughout the city—corridors that support small, local, and minority- and women-owned businesses, promote housing affordability, spur economic and workforce development, build community development capacity, create new amenities, support transit, and stabilize and enhance the communities through which they run. Broad Community Connections is excited to help lead the implementation of the CCRS over the coming year.